


i would gladly break my heart for you

by ultraviolence



Category: Fate/Apocrypha, Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Fate/stay night - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, Half-Sibling Incest, M/M, blood mention, i warned you, mega angst, violence mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 16:50:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16998825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultraviolence/pseuds/ultraviolence
Summary: In a universe where scientists have discovered how to split the multiverse, and traveling to new Earths on demand is a common thing, a broken Arjuna runs away from his homeworld as far as he can, only to discover that things get even more complicated. AU.





	i would gladly break my heart for you

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to angst hour with me, yours truly. I was inspired by [this prompt](https://twitter.com/ASmallFiction/status/1071994149543407616) on Twitter. For ambience, listen to [song](https://twitter.com/ASmallFiction/status/1071994149543407616). 
> 
> Maybe watch Another Earth by Brit Marling too (lol).
> 
> Enjoy!

The first time he went to another Earth, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The city of New York was just as he left it, all bustling with faded cabs and people in black coats hustling about, the skies grey and the air cold. Arjuna could have sworn that it was something he left behind, not a place he just moved into.

Perhaps it was subconscious, but he went to the nearest place to get coffee—fatigue isthe principal side effects of being in cryo for a couple lightyears—and as he sat down in an empty seat, he saw _him_. 

He looked well, nearly as well-bred as the one he knew— _left behind,_ Arjuna quickly corrected himself—and there was only a small, imperceptible difference between him and…well, the other. The one Arjuna doesn’t want to think about anymore.

He wondered if this one would have all the same likes as him, if he listened to the same music, if he likes curry powder as much as the one behind. If he hums in the shower, if he had a bruised knee still from protecting Arjuna from bullies when they were just children. 

If, if, if. Arjuna rose from his seat and approached him. 

He looked surprised when they locked gazes, but his eyes did twinkle the way it did when Arjuna “accidentally” spilled his coffee on his shirt.

* * *

They slept together. It wasn’t an end result, more like an ongoing process—dates, flowers, dinners, then this. Arjuna wasn’t a stranger to it. Even if some people consider it taboo, he doesn’t really care. It was him that he wanted, him that he could bare his soul to.

But this was…different.

After they slept together, all he could feel is a void inside his chest, a hollowness much like the space between the stars. He did not see it literally when he flew all the way here, of course, but he saw it in his dreams, imagined it as a child. 

Once, he had been afraid of them, and Karna was the one who drove the fear away.

He unconsciously snuggled closer to the warm body beside him. This Karna stirs, and opened his eyelids. He smiled, sleepily. 

“What’s wrong, Juna? You can’t sleep?”

Arjuna was at a loss of words, suddenly. He stared at him, then, in the partial darkness of Karna’s room, trying to make sense of everything. Perhaps the fatigue had finally overcome him—it did say in the departure brochure that sometimes the fatigue will catch up a day or two or even weeks later—because Arjuna suddenly felt like everything was unreal.

_Is he real?_ He asked himself, reaching out, touching Karna’s face. It does not give him the reassurance he wanted, but it filled out a little of the hollow space, like a tiny, distant star. 

“…no, I’m fine,” he quickly said, withdrawing from Karna, who tried to envelope him in a soft embrace. “Go back to sleep. I’m fine.”

He turned his back towards him.

He does not think of him as Karna any longer.

* * *

The second time, it gets harder. He couldn’t help but ask himself _is he real is he real is he real is he real_ the whole time they were eating dinner together, and when they finally slept together, in the aftermath, Arjuna thought about killing him. He knows that it’s forbidden under the law—and he’s already under suspicion, moving to yet another Earth so fast after his last stay, which was supposed to be permanent, though he bought off the Interstellar Police—and he also knows what it entails, but at the same time, he found himself thinking about the _knife_ , and _is he real_ , and his last night on Earth—his Earth—with the sky the colour of a ripe orange during the funeral. 

Karna couldn’t have. His eldest brother couldn’t have. Arjuna simply doesn’t have it in him to believe it. The thought drove him to the abyss of fury.

Unlike the first one, he tops this time, fucking him raw, couldn’t hear anything when they were climaxing except for _Arjuna Arjuna come back come back come home_. 

It was impossible, so after they take a break, Arjuna seduced him into another session. 

When he was asleep, beside him, he contemplated about killing him, about perhaps splitting his skull open like a mango, or slitting his wrists, light and butterfly-like, opening his veins, inducing a small-scale supernova. 

He nearly grabbed the knife, but Karna shifted and mumbled his name in his sleep.

* * *

The third time there was a snowstorm, and he ran into the nearest cafe. He was approaching the cashier while fishing around for money in his coat pocket, when he realised said cashier had stuttered.

It was him, again. 

Arjuna stared at him for a moment, but quickly composed himself. At this point, he was used to this.

“I apologise,” the cashier said, “may I take your order?”

Arjuna smiled, and slipped his number over the counter. 

“Yes,” he told him, enjoying the look on Karna’s—was it Karna? Is he real? Is it really him?—face. It’s not often that Arjuna had the upper hand. “One hot cocoa.”

When the shop closed, Karna locked the store and smoked in the alley adjacent to it. Arjuna accompanied him. Some things never change.

He tasted like tobacco and something strangely sweet when Karna kissed him. But there was something different, something imperceptible, that made Arjuna nearly pushed him away. Still, he kissed him so sweetly this time, and still, he fell in love with him.

That, he thought, is his chief problem: Arjuna had always been in love with all of the Karnas that he’d met. 

He loved them, he dined with them, he slept with them, and yet.

And yet, and yet, he’d never felt so empty. 

“I love you,” he told him that night, caressing his face, “please come back to me.”

“Arjuna,” this Karna said, confused, “I’m here. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said, holding back tears, still caressing his face, giving him a soft kiss on the cheek, then on the lips. “I’ll be. Don’t worry about me.”

But he lied, like so many times before.

* * *

The fourth time he just felt dead inside, as if all the underworld in the myth had been placed inside his chest and he’d to bear with the pain of all the phantoms who was inside it, as if his chest had been forcibly ripped open. There was only pain, and more pain, and it wasn’t supposed to happen—the A.I in the ship panicked—but he woke up halfway through the journey to the fourth Earth, the salty taste of tears in his tongue. His cheeks were wet. They had to recheck his vitals and they nearly sent him back because they thought he was unfit for the voyage.

If only they knew.

But they put him under again, and he dreams. He dreams of halcyon days where they were children, when they hated each other with all their might. He dreams of cool winter nights when they were adolescents, and Arjuna started to understand why he hated Karna the way he did, and why Karna had every right to hate him back but he doesn’t, not actually. He dreams of the rose garden that their mother loved, of footfalls echoing there, in his memory, and in his memory alone, down that path. 

Mostly, he dreams of Karna.

He was choking when he wakes up, drowning on dry land, and they had to haul him out of the cryo this time. They nearly didn’t release him, but Arjuna manages to bought his way out of it once more. 

New York is still new York, merciless, and Arjuna dragged his feet through it. He sat down in Hyde Park, not knowing what to do, knowing only with certainty that their meeting is inevitable: it was only a matter of time.

He was deep in thought when a man approached him. 

“Are you okay? Do you need anything?”

The voice was utterly, indescribably familiar, and, of course, when Arjuna lifted his head, it was him. It was him, he was real, and he was _there_. 

The other man, for some reason, looked just as surprised, as if he wasn’t expecting…well, as if he wasn’t expecting him. Had he arrived in a world where what happened back in his world had also happened, but the reverse? Would it be possible for such a thing to happen? Amidst the sea of nothingness that surrounded his heart, Arjuna felt a glimmer of hope for the first time.

“I’m…okay,” Arjuna told him, trying to give him a smile of reassurance, though it came out more as a grimace. “Karna,” he said his name, tasting it in his tongue, wanting to protect it forever and ever. The name was magic, and it was mystery, and it brought him to the shores like a strong tide, enabling Arjuna to see his grief with clarity.

Karna, Karna, Karna. He repeated his name in his mind, holding on and never wanting to let go.

To his surprise, Karna laughs, a sound that shook Arjuna’s darkened universe and gave birth to new stars. 

“I thought you were angry at me,” he said, running a finger through his silver hair. “I thought…well, forget it, Juna. I’m glad you are okay.”

“Why…would I be angry at you?” Arjuna told him, confusion bleeding into this voice. He just wants to embrace him and bury his face in his chest for eternity, then drag him home and had dinner with him while they exchange insults. That is what they do, back then. 

That is what they do, when his Karna was still alive.

“Well, you seem adamant about not wanting to visit my father’s side of the family this morning,” Karna said, and Arjuna shook his head, sadly, tuning him out.

He rose from his seat. 

“Where are you going?” The man who looked like Karna inquired, and, stealing a gaze, Arjuna could see that he looked confused, again. 

“I am not who you think I am,” Arjuna told him, shaking his head, and brushed his way past him. 

That night, he contemplated about killing himself.

* * *

The next Earth was different. It was in the air, in the sky, and even the smells of the city was different. Arjuna stepped through the city warily, as if he was sidestepping a great beast in slumber. 

It was no use. First he lost his love, then his purpose, and eventually he lost his belongings—something that was unthinkable due to the conditions of his life so far, the intrinsic luck that he bears and what makes his mother loves him so, unlike Karna—mugged as he was in this Earth, left for the cold and the beast that is the city in a dark, damp alleyway. He stumbled out of it a changed man, in more ways than one.

“You looked like you could use some help,” an overly-familiar voice remarked, stepping out of the shadows. Arjuna couldn’t help but raise his gaze, couldn’t help but wonder in awe at Karna, at this world’s Karna, glorious as he was, luminescent under the distant light of streetlights. In his eyes, he was like a lighthouse, the only thing in the world that emits light. Everything else, everyone else, in the world was dead and dark, and they are the only two people alive in the night, even in the entire merciless universe full of spaces between the stars and voids.

He was wearing a long red coat—it was a cold, cold night—with a two-piece black suit underneath it, as if he had just returned from the opera, or orchestrating someone’s murder, and blowing a ring of smoke into the dark sky. His eyes—when they met Arjuna’s—was still as blue as he remembers it, but one of them was red, like a virgin Mary’s tear of blood. 

“Heterochromia,” he said, stubbing his cigarette casually underneath his feet, “my mother said it was a curse. Then again, she dumped me, so who’s to speak about curses, right?”

This surprised Arjuna. Karna had always been frank, but he had never been…well, to say that he had never been sarcastic would do him an injustice, too, since he _could_ be sarcastic, but this dark humour is something new. Karna hasn’t had an easy life, but he never once complained about it.

This one intrigues Arjuna. He took a tentative step forward.

“You look like a deer in the headlights,” he said, “don’t be so shy. You’re Arjuna, aren’t you? Not the Arjuna I know, but one from another world. That much is easy to tell.”

“Yes,” Arjuna told him, unresisting, “and you are not like any other Karna I know. Tell me, who are you?”

He gave him a lopsided side smile, putting his hands in his pocket. “Karna, as you say. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Arjuna’s grief returned tenfold, then, with all the force of all the crushing tsunamis in the world, breaking him and breaking him and breaking him like foam on the shore. He accidentally let out a sob, but quickly composed himself. 

Karna was still observing him, but if he noticed the sob, he didn’t say anything. That much is like the Karna he knew, at least.

“I suppose we can talk later,” Karna said, taking off his coat and putting it on Arjuna’s frame. “There. My place isn’t far, just a few blocks ahead. Can you walk?”

Even if he was strange, even if this world is as alien to Arjuna as things after Karna’s passing, that much at least reassure Arjuna. Karna had always been generous to a fault. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he told him, and then, realising how oddly Karna was staring at him, he quickly added, “don’t patronise me. Just because I’m new here doesn’t mean you can push me around.”

Karna smiled, thinly, the best thing that Arjuna saw that night. “That’s the Arjuna I know. Let’s go.”

* * *

His “place” was a large condominium overlooking the city, and although the space was so large, it also felt so…empty. Arjuna shivered for a bit, despite the coat that Karna had lent him, and despite the fact that they were out of the cold now.

Karna clapped his hands together after the door was closed behind them, and the lights and the heater turns on. 

“I am rarely here,” he said, “so pardon me if things are a little haphazard.”

Arjuna merely nodded, head still spinning from the overload of new information, casting his gaze about the place. It was chic, he supposed, like something straight out of a lifestyle magazine, but also more than a bit empty.

“You lived here alone?” Arjuna asked, not taking off Karna’s coat. 

“Yes,” Karna nodded, but said nothing more. Instead, he went to the bar. “Drink?”

“I’ll take what you take,” Arjuna told him, suddenly feeling bold. He could feel another of Karna’s thin smiles directed at him, but he pretended that he didn’t see it. 

“Sit down,” Karna ordered, and Arjuna, feeling the fatigue suddenly ambushing him, complies. He sat down on the nearest plush sofa, and a moment later, Karna comes from the bar carrying two glasses of whiskey on the rocks. 

Karna immediately took a sip, but Arjuna waited, and for a moment, silence blossomed between them. Karna doesn’t seem to mind it, but Arjuna felt as if he was obligated to fill it, for some reason.

“How was the trip?” Karna asked. “I never take one of those. I suppose just one Earth is enough for me.”

“Pretty standard,” Arjuna said in return, stiffly. “It takes me to my destination. That is all that matters.”

“It isn’t your first trip?” He asked again, and Arjuna cursed himself. Karna, in whatever form, could always see through him, and he saw through him better than he saw through anyone else.

“No. But I’d prefer if you don’t ask anything about it,” he told him, sipping the whiskey. 

“Then…why did you come here?” Karna asked, with a frankness that is too much, even for him, and Arjuna couldn’t help but look, couldn’t help but look at him, gaze meeting his, though he quickly looked away. “Why come here at all? This isn’t a good world, Juna. Even if you’ve seen worse, I could vouch on my life that this one is even worse off.”

“I take note of your concern, Karna, but that is unnecessary. I can take care of myself,” Arjuna told him, coldly, subconsciously pulling the coat closer. He hated it when Karna treated him as his little brother, though he was, in more ways than one.

There was a long silence, and Karna sighed and put down his glass.

“I’ve lived a debauched life here,” he said, lighting up a smoke, “it’s true. But Arjuna…I assumed that, from whatever Earth you came from, you lived a good life. I can see that. Why leave that behind?”

“Shut up,” Arjuna retorted, hands balling into fists, “shut _up_. You understand nothing. You don’t fucking understand anything. You don’t understand that— that if I went home there’s nothing left for me there a- and and he’s _gone_ and I don’t know how to carry on—“

He couldn’t help it. There’s nothing left in him anymore but to cry, tears streaming down his face, like a cold, rushing river, and he remembered the second Earth, how he heardKarna calling him to come back, come back, to come home, _home_. 

But home doesn’t exist anymore.

He felt Karna’s arms around him, then, enveloping him with a familiar warmth although his scent is a bit different, and he sobbed his heart out, burying his face in his chest afterwards.

After the storm, there was nothing left to cry about, and Arjuna felt emptied out, washed clean.

He doesn’t remember drinking more. He doesn’t remember Karna helping him getting into bed, or him kissing his forehead before unconsciousness takes him. 

His sleep was dreamless, cold void coming to claim him at last.

* * *

“So, where are you going from here?” 

Karna asked him, in the morning after. Arjuna had gotten dressed, had made himself breakfast, and was ready to slip out of the front door. That is, until Karna, in an elegant dressing gown, comes out of the guest room and spotted him near the door. 

Arjuna considers several possibilities, jugging them around in his head. He doesn’t know how to feel anymore—not towards Karna, not towards himself, not towards his Karna’s death—not after last night. 

“You could stay, you know,” Karna told him, stretching for a bit, feline-like, “you could help run my empire with me. Arjuna—the Arjuna I know—was a little too righteous to do such a thing. But you…” he trailed off, gaze going down from Arjuna’s eyes to his lips, “you are different than him. Life shapes you differently.”

Arjuna considers this for a moment. Karna looked at him, expectantly, giving him the ghost of a smile. It was very tempting to take up on his offer and stay here, in this rotten phantom of a world, ruling over what Karna calls his empire. He doesn’t yet know what it is exactly, but from last night’s experience—the experience that brought him to Karna—he had an inkling of what it is. 

“No, Karna. I can’t,” he said, already turning away, one hand on the door. “I’m sorry.”

“Then…” Karna sounds confused, and Arjuna could see in his mind’s eye the look on his face, the same look that his Karna gave him whenever he confused him, “where are you going?”

“Home.”

 


End file.
